assclowns in the USA
And
ThugLivesMatterBlackLivesMatter protesters? I’ll call them what they are, too: ASSCLOWNS. (VR Kaine)
I don’t live in the United States of America, but main news items from there are quite often covered by the British media.
What I saw in the last few days, in way too much detail for my liking, was coverage of two men being murdered by people called “law enforcement officers” who were either trigger happy, poorly trained or seriously inept (perhaps a combination of all three). As I understand it, these murders come on the back of many more deaths in dubious circumstances. And in all of these cases, no-one has been held accountable.
Based on what I’ve seen, there are some serious problems within the law enforcement community in the USA. I’m not surprised in the slightest that there have been demonstrations, and that people are furious and disillusioned. And let’s be honest, in a society where the people who are employed to protect fellow citizens are developing a horrendous habit of killing them, it’s not surprising that as these cases of officers killing citizens become more frequent and better documented, civil unrest and revenge murders are starting to rear their ugly heads.
What does surprise me is the level of fury against people protesting for change, as demonstrated in VR Kaine’s rant, quoted and linked to above. If I lived in a country where my fellow citizens were being gunned down by police officers without cause on a regular basis, I would be in a state of shock and horror about the atrocious state of key institutions that underpin a civilised society. I would be furious about any mindless revenge attacks too, right enough, but they would certainly not be the focus of my fury.
Should police officers have guns when they’ve demonstrated they can’t use them sensibly?
Should private citizens have guns if all the evidence shows possession of a weapon is more likely to see you killed than protected (as has been demonstrated in these high profile cases of the last couple of days)?
Unfortunately for the USA, their country is saturated in weapons. So, in one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, where people consider themselves to be ‘free’, most of the population seem to fear and distrust their fellow citizens so much that they believe their safest bet is to carry a weapon that can instantly kill another person. It’s a curious culture, a pitiful society in this respect, and I hope that this aspect of American society doesn’t ever leave its shores for mine.
VR Kaine will be at pains to assure us all that he’s not racist, or an assclown. Yet there’s something about his post that makes me suspect he’s both.
You had me at the title.
Talking guns over on Insanity`s spot. Always fun.
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It’s a great place to make blogging buddies. I’ll have to pop over. 🙂
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Imagine being the target of a few ‘bad apples’ legally empowered to shoot people who look like you at the slightest provocation… all because you wear a police uniform. Every time you step outside, you know that perhaps one of those ‘bad apples’ will set his or her sights on you for no other reason than because of the uniform you wear. That’s it. It doesn’t matter what kind of person you are, where you might be, what you might be doing, what time of day; it’s always open season on uniformed cops. Every week, one your uniformed brothers is gunned down. Sometimes more. And the perpetrators alway seems to be found legally innocent.
Who would want to remain a cop and live that way, day in and day out, always?
Too bad you can’t take off your skin like you can a uniform.
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Oooh, nice one Tildeb. I’ll be interested to see how anyone would take that on.
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Stellar!
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Too horrible to comment on.
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My post, VR Kaine’s post, or the whole mess?
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The whole mess. “Thug lives matter” is a new take I had not seen. I would say, yes, of course thug lives matter- human rights are for the horrible, weird, ridiculous and disgusting people the nice people would not like- but that is not what he means.
What about a see-through plastic pocket on the dashboard for your license and insurance, so that you can point to it, say to the cop that is all I am reaching for, and only because you asked to see it- and not get shot?
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Yes, great point, that actually even if it was a ‘thug’ problem, their lives would actually matter too.
I fairly accidentally watched videos of both – unbelievable.
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The funny thing is that the most eggegious acts of police criminality are usually underreported while borderline cases get blown up in the media because of race politics. That is one reason why it is so hard to talk about police reform.
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Oh I see. And what about the two cases in recent days is ‘borderline’ for you dp?
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I’m speaking in general. Don’t really know the details of the latest.
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I’m sure most of those cases are “borderline” cases simply because of race politics. To the non-whites concerned I’m quite sure those cases are anything but borderline.
I sense that violent events in the US, such as those we have seen on our news coverage over the last few nights, are of greater concern to us here in Aotearoa New Zealand than it is to the white community in the US. It does illustrate the level of perpetual violence that runs through American society.
Such events also reinforce our opinion that maintaining the status quo of having an unarmed police force is a sensible one, as is having a single nationwide force that has the resources to provide comprehensive and on going training.
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The Freddy Grey case, the Brown case, and the case of the fellow who had a heart attack after being arrested for selling illegal cigarettes were all borderline cases in which it is doubtful the police did anything wrong, but all these cases turned into racial politics farces. There was the beginning of a movement to reform police behavior but Black Lives Matter poisoned the well.
The U.S. is a violent country if you are a poor urban black man between the ages of 15 and 25, otherwise it is very safe.
As for the joys of a national police force, why on earth should that work any better than the TSA? Federal employees are notoriously incompetent.
With technology it should be possible to use dashboard cameras and body cameras to monitor police behavior. States need to unilaterally rewrite police union contracts to make it easier to fire bad actors.
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Institutional racism, just like institutional sexism and institutional ableism are ingrained into our societies, and one can support them without realising one is doing so. In another comment on this page, Paul describes an example of this that occurred in Canada.
Unless you are on the receiving end of institutional prejudice it is very often not recognised.
In the matter of a nationwide police force, the reference was to Aotearoa New Zealand. We didn’t go down the road of having small or local forces such as in the USA where a force can be as small as a single municipality or county. The resources available for adequate training and especially oversight are not always available. With small forces the personalities (and prejudices) of top administrators and commanders can affect the impartiality of a small force more than occurs in a large force. All police forces need independent watchdogs and oversight. They should have independent bodies to hear complaints against the force itself and individual officers. Is this workable with a very small police force?
NZ has a little over four million people, so I’m not suggesting it would be a suitable model at the federal level. But it might be workable at the state level.
Why should
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Sorry, I incorrectly attributed the comment to Paul. It was in fact a comment by Tildeb.
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There are town police, state police, FBI and a million other acronym Fed agencies. I doubt it is realistic to have them all marching to one beat.
And any system, no matter how conceptually brilliant, will sooner or later become a racket.
I don’t deny the existence of uncouncious racism. I do deny the utility of hunting down ever more minute manifestations of it and then trying to create some kind of legal system around the esoteric knowledge. Pointing and shouting “racist” at well meaning people achieves nothing. It is not a concrete proposal.
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Poisoned the well?
Good grief. The depth of your blindness is staggering and the accompanying arrogance astounding. It’s so backwards that you I’m pretty sure it’s your anus doing the talking.
Maybe when you’ve been raised in a society where its expected that if you want your children to live when out in public while minding their own business, when you’ve had to train your children to behave differently in public than your white neighbours with theirs, how to walk, how to look, how to cross the road and keep away from uniformed police officers, you’ll begin to have the very first inkling into how insidious is the inherent racism you and your kids must face, where the colour of your skin magically turns you into a threat in the eyes of the police, where every item around you is magically weaponized simply by your presence, where the assumption by authority figures about you is all negative, filled with fear and mistrust, where even following all these unwritten rules and obeying the police officers still results in sanctioned death for blacks, you’ll begin to open your eyes. That’s the reality, dp, and having corrective movements to this bigotry is not the poison.
What should be obvious is that this kind of racism is eerily similar to how girls also receive specialized training on how to be in the public domain, how to walk differently than their male counterparts, how to dress differently, how to always be aware of mistakenly ‘inviting’ sexual assault, scanning for dangerous situations, living fearfully from attack, being held accountable for ‘provoking’ men into assaulting them, and so on. That’s patriarchy in action and it’s as insidious because its as encompassing.
Of course, staying true to form, you’re probably one of those who blithely assume feminism is the real problem, just like being black is the real problem provoking police to murder real people in real life and get away with it time after time. By going along with the charade that blacks are the problem, you’re not helping. In fact you’re attitude – and one shared by far, far too many people – is the core problem
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You should make an effort to be more susinct: “shut up whitey” would have expressed the same and saved us both trouble.
I just proposed two concrete criminal justice reforms. You just blathered about identity politics to shut me up and make you feel good about youself.
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I’m all for Tildeb being told off when he’s being long-winded, but I have to say on this occasion I thought he expressed himself very well, and made excellent points. I can only assume you’re being dismissive of said points because you don’t want to think about them too deeply. Go back and read it again and try that experience where you genuinely consider life from another point of view.
Then you can pick him up on the two criminal justice reform points you feel he didn’t address.
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I’m dismissive because I think he’s full of crap. This preaching about how we need to repent from being a deeply racist society is tent revivalism for atheists.
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Repent, dpmonahan? You think my points are reduced to this? That’s very dishonest of you.
We as a civil society don’t address systemic racism by pretending police are the problem. Their racist behaviour is just another in a very long list of symptoms and making them wear cameras is a symptomatic response, a response you label as ‘police reform.’ That’s a trivial response. Furthermore, blaming BLM for slowing down this ‘police reform’ is not addressing the problem of systemic racism that BLM calls for, either; it’s a diversion that is tantamount to blaming the victim. You just don’t see it. That’s your problem and one that leads you to being what I calim is part of the problem: not recognizing what the real problem is!
Bringing about real, effective, and measurable solutions begins with first recognizing what the real problem is: systemic racism. You won’t even go this far; instead, all you’re willing to do is misrepresent someone who criticizes your myopic opinion about treating symptoms by claiming that I “don’t like (your) reform proposals because they are concrete and would produce action.” That’s a straight up lie.
No, dpmonahan, I don’t like your proposals because they burden police from doing their real job of enforcing the law using violence if necessary and shifts the focus to appearing to do their job (and the natural urge to avoid tackling difficult and instantaneous situations requiring immediate judgement calls because it’s going to be on camera and subject to administrative review outside of the context in which it occurs in real time)… all to mollify armchair twits like you who actually think they represent support for beleaguered police. They don’t. Your suggestions gives the appearance that the real problem is the police and then you think yourself justified to claim to be a supporter of them!
Now, here you go with yet another round of stupifyingly idiotic diversions that equates pointing out and criticizing your trivial symptomatic approach with “outrage and sanctimony.” No, criticizing your approach is necessary if the real problem – systemic racism – is to be addressed effectively and with tangible results. Remember, you think the police are the problem… the same police throwing their bodies – white and black – on BLM protesters in Dallas to protect them from a sniper attack. The police are not the problem; they represent the best and worst of us because they ARE us. They represent the same racism that afflicts us all.
We need to fix ourselves. And that includes you not dismissing this challenge but taking it to heart and doing your part… if you have the courage from such quality of character. If that’s ‘atheist revivalism’ then some of us need to hear a lot more of it.
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Of course by “us” and “we” and “ourselves” you don’t mean “Tildeb and friends”. You mean (ta da!) me and other people you don’t like. Neat trick, really, casting blame for the actions of criminals on innocent third parties to satisfy your need for moral preening. You even take it a step further and say realistic proposals to reduce crime and exercise greater oversight over public employees are dishonest attempts at deflection motivated by (wait for it) unconscious racism! Heads you win, tails I lose. Nice racket you’ve cooked up.
And I’m the dishonest one.
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I’ve already mentioned realistic proposals, proposals that actually work, that actually begin to address systemic racism and reduce it while reducing the symptoms you are so eager to identify… not just in the short term but long. Concrete changes that can only be effective if done by system wide policies and procedures that target racism specifically, misogyny specifically, principled authority in action, not just by front end workers – the police in this case – but by all court officers, not just by soldiers but by all military personnel. These systemic measures work, not all at once to be sure and not overnight but incrementally so that real progress – measurable progress, society wide progress – is made. This is the solution because bigotry and privilege are the problems.
Such solutions require political capital. That’s where all of us come into it. We have a job to bring into being these solutions, to use our opinions and public presence to bring capital to those in positions of power to implement them. That’s what a mature secular democracy has to do to survive its own tendencies to bias and privilege and this is where the US faces such a huge and daunting challenge: to understand that each individual has a social responsibility to be fair to every one else… not just members of their small tribe(s) but to every citizen. Fair and equitable treatment for everyone under the law is the bedrock upon which a fair and equitable society for everyone can be built.
It is the American way to target the Little Guys with real problems and hurdles as the enemy and privilege the Big Guys with wealth and power to tilt everything in their favour. We see this played out all the time. It is a guaranteed method to maintain inequality under the law and unfair practices. In education, it’s the Bad Teachers and not a systemic problem undermining public education. In labour, it’s the Bad Unions and not the systemic problems undermining the middle class. In law, it’s the Bad Police,Officers and not the systemic problems undermining the legal system. And so on.
Until people wake up and stop voting against their own best interests in the hopeful pipe dream of joining the Privileged Few, real solutions are not going to happen.
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Reforming police behaviour sounds just swell. Loading them up with cameras and altering union contracts to fire officers is music to the ears of those who assume the remedy is just that trivial. It’s not.
What I’m saying is that you’re not identifying the real problem (but offering what is tantamount to be nothing more than band-aids meant to placate both the victims and the public at large for a bit of time. That’s not a solution, dpmonohan; it’s a diversion that maintains the problem and gives it more time to make the problem worse.
What I think you’re missing is that all of us are being victimized by institutional racism and we continue to be victimized – whites, blacks, police, Left, Right, and so on, to different degrees and extents to be sure – by refusing to tackle the problem responsibly. I think that’s what you’re doing: failing to grasp the problem but offering a modicum of attention to addressing a few of the symptoms. Slinging blame at Blacklivesmatter as if THIS is the real problem is as idiotic as it is unmitigated bullshit. This asinine targeting fails to grasp that placating a racist society by such trivial means – as well as shifting the onus on to police alone – trivializes the very large problem of racism all of us face, all of us either add to or reduce each and every day by what we say, what we do, how we behave, and the opinions we enunciate. Your opinion is the kind that adds. You need to fix that.
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I did not blame BLM for anything but slowing the push for police reform. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would have been in favor of the sorts of things I mentioned above but who are now rallying around the police.
I know you don’t like my reform proposals because they are concrete and would produce action, giving people like you insufficient opportunities for outrage and sanctimony.
God forbid we should ACTUALLY fire bad cops and ACTUALLY have oversight when instead we could be searching high and low for ever more rarefied forms of unconscious racism. The former is boring, but the latter lets you call people ‘racist’ on the internet!
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This problem goes incredibly deep. You get cycles of mistrust and antagonism- or the opposite. But we get to decide that as a culture, and as individuals. In the US they seem to have a problem with the entire concept of *authori-tay* (as Cartman would say). Blacks are the enemy, the police are the enemy; doomed to failure.
Over the years I’ve actually had a chance to observe that on a personal level. Mike’s attitude at those ~stop everyone at the roundabout~ days was antagonism to the police. And antagonism breeds antagonism. If he was driving we’d be there for two hours. If I was driving my attitude got us waved away in seconds with a “Good day, Sir.” In fact, when I had my DUI, they didn’t just apologize to me for the inconvenience, they drove me home.
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“when I had my DUI, they didn’t just apologize to me for the inconvenience, they drove me home”
Jeez, nothing to boast about Pink. You should hang your head in shame.
I agree that antagonism breeds antagonism. I don’t know how a country gets out of such a cycle though. Their police forces need serious re-training, or targeted recruitment campaigns so they are recruiting young people who are representative of the community they are supposed to be serving. They clearly don’t see the men they’ve been killing as multi-dimensional people – they are seeing them as one dimensional ‘threat’ or ‘thug’ (as VR Kaine says). If you are serving a community you know, it’s not so easy to put a bullet in the head of your neighbour.
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Boast? Isn’t perspective bias an extraordinary thing? First because the legal limit of drinking (for driving) in Spain is 1/4th of what it is in the UK, and 1/3rd of what it is in France. I didn’t say I was falling over; I’d had 2 glasses of wine. Secondly, my point was on civilian/police relations. Or what should be, in a better world, a duty of reciprocal care. Boasting? Shame? Not quite.
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Blah blah boast-I’m-so-clever. Then “how dare you!”. Drinking and driving is drinking and driving. You should be ashamed. Have the sense not to mention it in the context of boasting about your ‘clever’ silver tongue.
Your point about civilian/police relations is not made – you’ve only demonstrated how rich people talk their way about of situations that anyone who the police have a prejudice against (be that conscious or unconscious) are unable to do. You’ve demonstrated the fickleness of law and need for fickleness not to be given weapons that kill.
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Are you having trouble reading today? That’s total hogwash. I specifically gave the example comparing the treatment received by Mike versus the treatment received by me.
It should be rather obvious that we drive the same cars and have *the same social status*, and the same financial status as we’re married, genius. So how could this possibly be about “rich people talking their way out of…”- that’s your prejudice talking, not me.
As for shame, that’s equally ridiculous. Spain halved it’s legal alcohol limit the year I got my DUI. That means two months before 0.25 m/l wasn’t considered drunk driving. So there’s nothing for me to be ashamed of. It was a bureaucratic change, not a moral/ethical one.
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I don’t want this to turn into one of our spats where we fall out … again, till a common enemy comes along … again. But, hey ho 😉
1. In your first comment you made no reference to the level of your drunkenness, just called flippantly mentioned you got out of a DUI essentially by batting your eyelids. It’s not a cool story.
2. The fact that you weren’t totally pissed obviously makes less of a shame story, although it’s still not cool to be driving deadly machines in a state where you reactions are demonstrably impeded, and it’s against the law (laws made based on ethical/moral considerations in light of facts about driving performances under the influence of alcohol).
3. Mike is an immigrant in Spain, isn’t he? I assume you pass for a native, if not, at the very least, a charming French dude from across the border. I don’t think police (or anyone) just react to the attitude of the person they’re dealing with, they also react to their prejudices.
4. Whichever way we discuss it, the conclusion is always going to be that citizens shouldn’t routinely have guns, and police shouldn’t routinely have guns. Unless no-one really cares about the people being shot … which seems to be the case in many sections of US society (unless it’s the police getting shot, as demonstrated by VR Kaine’s tunnel-vision fury.)
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I didn’t “get out of anything”. I explained how the police officer apologized for the incident (very few civilians actually knew the law had changed) and how drove me home. I paid a fine like everyone else has to. He didn’t treat me with hostility. Mike speaks Spanish like a native. He grew up spending holidays in Spain because his parents had a house there. The real identifiable difference is he’s got a profound distrust of the police (which may or may not be justified- but is a generalization.) I don’t. That comes through. They feel it as well. From the point where the basis of a relationship is antagonism- it’s all downhill from there.
Notice what you did in your last comment, it was a de-escalation of antagonism. That seems to be the ability/training that’s missing in America. They seem to be taught the exact procedures of how to make situations take the worst possible course. In turn certain communities treat them with a certain degree of contempt- and there we have a cycle that keeps itself going.
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You must be getting your news from Hallucination Station of Paris, France.
A black thug just slaughtered 5 white policemen in Dallas, Texas.
He ambushed them and then gunned them down.
Did you know that a black person is 18 times more likely to be killed by one of his own then by a white police officer?
Of course not.
Reality just ain’t so at Hallucination Station of Paris, France.
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Did you know that in the US the odds of being killed by someone of your own race verses being killed by someone of another race are the same for blacks and whites?
Black males are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than white males. 3.12 per 100,000 black males are killed by police, whereas it’s only 0.14 for white males.
The statistics seem to show that a black male in the US is more than six times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a male in Aotearoa New Zealand is likely to be killed by anyone. Those are not the odds I would expect from a force that is supposed to protect you.
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Barry,
Blacks are 21 times more likely to be killed by police because blacks commit the most crimes.
Black on black crime is the problem, not white racism.
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Do they commit crimes at 21 times the rate of whites? Yes, blacks have a higher rate of criminal convictions, but 21 times?
But perhaps racism has much to do with the reasons why blacks commit more crime and are convicted.
We see examples of racism such as the shooting of Philando Castile almost weekly on our Television, and I don’t even live in the USA.
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Barry,
A policeman is a man, a human.
A danger factor of 21 is enough to loosen anyone’s sphincter.
Also, black and Hispanic cops kill more black perps than white cops.
White cops, in fact are slow on the draw when it comes to black perps.
I’ll dig up the stats which are impressive.
They put the lie to the notion that white cops have it in for blacks.
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“Also, black and Hispanic cops kill more black perps than white cops.
White cops, in fact are slow on the draw when it comes to black perps.
I’ll dig up the stats which are impressive.”
Yes, let’s see these impressive stats. And if they do actually exist, are they in cases like these recently publicised ones where the black people were clearly killed for no reason (unless you count ‘fear with no basis’ as a reason to kill someone)?
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I cannot recall the last time a white was shot by a police officer for sitting on a park bench, selling cigarettes, driving with a broken tail light, knocking on a door, walking home. I cannot recall any whites dying from a drive in the back of a police wagon. But I can recall all of these being fatal to blacks.
The rate of police homicides against minority blacks dwarfs those against whites per hundred thousand and is similar to the rate of homicides against natives here in Canada. For the same ‘crime’ rates of violence by police against these minorities is roughly twenty times that carried out against the majority. The same is true for higher rates of sentencing, longer lengths of incarceration, and so on. When tallied, these significant rate differences cannot be explained away by passing references to ‘they-do-more-crime’ rationalization. What these rates demonstrate is endemic and institutionalized racism at all levels of law enforcement. And the treatment to rectify this tremendous imbalance can never be started if we don’t first recognize the central problems: justice is not blind but very much centered around embedded racism.
A good first step is to appoint to federal leadership – in the case of Canada, the Minister of Justice – with the full power to change policies and procedures from the minorities most vulnerable to this abuse. Those who report to them have to justify any policies that advocate different treatment. A good second step is to have mayors and councils step forward, apologize for being part of the problem, and set up yearly reviews by minority leadership for fixing the municipal problems. A good third step is to have judicial reviews to reduce the rate of sentencing disparities or get that judge’s ass fired from the bench. A good forth step is to subject police officers who use deadly force to automatic independent review and, if found excessive, be sentenced for the crime they have committed. For example, a police officer who shot a person to death armed with knife was allowed to fire until the person was not an immediate threat. Each of the next nine shots were considered attempted murder, found guilty, and the officer sentenced to prison. Message sent. Now officers pay attention to recognize what constitutes an immediate threat. And so on.
This murdering of people for being black has to stop. Sooner is better than later. Americans need to put aside their fear of their neighbours, get their shit together, and grow up from this vile Dirty Harry gun culture.
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You can’t recall it because the press doesn’t care to cover it.
I recommend getting a brain of your own, training it to think, and then doing some thinking.
You leftist folks are perpetuating yet another deadly hoax.
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Riiight…. I comment about the difference of rates FOR THE SAME CRIME and you tell me it’s really just bias in the press, a Leftist conspiracy, a hoax.
Yes, one of us is not using our brains very well. Here’s the clue just for you SOM… it isn’t me. Now let’s see if you can use all that training on how to think with that big brain of yours and figure out who isn’t thinking very well. Take your time.
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tildeb,
I commented on the very same words you, yourself, cobbled together.
If you have a problem with your own words, I am not the one to be arguing with.
Why don’t you begin an argument with yourself and afterward tell us how it all worked out?
Did you win or lose the argument?
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Did you know that fewer than one in three black people killed by police in America last year were suspected of a violent crime and allegedly armed?
If the statistics for whites are similar, it’s an appalling indictment on American law enforcement. The public should not face that sort of danger from police.
If the statistics are very different for whites and blacks, then it’s still an appalling indictment on American law enforcement. Strong evidence of racism in American law enforcement.
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Hi Tildeb,
I agree with a lot of what you say but I believe “getting killed for sitting on a park bench or for having a broken tail light” is not only false but also misleading. For instance,Philando Castile wasn’t killed “because of a broken tail light”. His girlfriend was pulled over for a busted tail light. When the cop thought Castile was pulling a gun, he (I think very wrongly) shot him, but that cop’s state – indicated by the video – clearly seems hardly one of hate.
Same with Darren Wilson – was Michael Brown “gunned down” in the street with his hands up as many still try and claim? It was proved over and over that wasn’t the case at all.
Some bad players (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30339943) but what’s the progressive liberal solution? Sensitivity training? Been done for years. Community representation? Been done for years. Fewer cops? Good luck with crime and safety in the communities most needing it.
And as for the stats…
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cops-killing-aaron-bandler
Gun culture? Totally agree with you.
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The problem with your argument, VR, is that you recognize no systemic problem by the police in the different treatment they exercise towards blacks. And this is unquestionable (just look at the twitter feed by black NFL players who are regularly treated differently and often hassled by cops when away from their teams based solely on the colour of their skin and not the aulity of their character). You attribute this difference to blacks themselves – who presumably must have some greater inherent tendency towards criminality – and then rationalize that they have brought it on themselves because they do punch above their weight in committing crimes. From this perspective, you can see the blatant racism at work in your opinion. The same kind of argument has been used forever against indigenous populations, too, and it’s a hard problem to have to get past before systemic reformation can occur.
Your argument reminds me strongly of parents who use corporal punishment and then blame the child for the harsh and sometimes deadly treatment they receive. Yes, we are seeing behaviours that on its surface appear to justify the violent responses; what we’re not seeing is how these behaviours are groomed into being by the responders.
The same is the case in a racist society: different treatment based on race produces different rates of racial behaviours (surprising exactly no one). That’s why we look at comparative rates of treatment and not specifics to indicate whether or not different systemic treatment is grooming the differences that appear to deserve the harsher treatment.
A very simple example here in Canada is the police practice of carding, of demanding documentation from blacks and indigenous people but not asians or whites. The police are tasked by their commanders to treat people based on race, to pull over blacks in nice cars, blacks walking neighbourhood streets, blacks sitting on park benches, and so on. It wasn’t until a few years ago that this practice was stopped in Toronto … not by police officers themselves – including black officers – who thought the practice unfair and willing to fight the inherent willingness to promote racism within their own ranks but by direct order from the Mayor’s office (on the recommendation of the recently promoted black chief of police). It seems to be a small step but it’s the first on the downward slope of this problem.
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Hi Tildeb, you’re correct that in this instance I do not comment directly on the systemic racism that I believe does exist. You and I will likely disagree on the degree it exists, but only a fool would say it’s not there.
Of course some will immediately say “He’s white, of course” as VW often uses as her excuse (a racist comment in its own right), but if we’re going to address the entire problem (system + all) I don’t believe that starts by giving free passes to an underlying thug culture where cop-killers are deified – something which I find people like VW are very prone to doing.
Again, I work with cops in inner cities. “Hand up, then don’t shoot” I can FULLY agree with. Pulling over a black man in a car because it’s a nice car? Can FULLY agree with. Those types of cops and that type of thinking, however, is already being worked out of the system but it is a very large, bureaucratic, and political system (thanks to you liberals).
But “Don’t automatically assume a bunch of people dressed as a thugs late at night in front of a 7-11 is armed and potential killer”, however? That I don’t immediately support. That’s loser liberal wannabe thinking, thinking that I bet NONE of you here even subscribe to, and easy for you to say, but for cops to actually do can easily cost cops and peoples’ lives. Not only that, but the whole Liberal “Let’s not be prejudice” thing is totally bullshit and hypocritical. After all, isn’t it your crowd that says we’re supposed to assume that every man is a rapist – even if he’s sitting on a park bench? And why does your side say that again? Safety, perhaps? Hmmmm… interesting.
Anyways, I do agree in principle with everything that you’re saying. There are systemic, underlying issues that need to be addressed but a bunch of loser punks protesting for the sake of protesting isn’t going to accomplish anything and neither is not identifying the obvious elephants in the room.
Why not give cops IR scanners so they can detect weapons before approaching? Why not let a cop know from a license plate who’s a permitted carrier? (And F-U, Republican NRA nuts for being anti-this one, but F-U liberals who don’t want to increase police budgets). Or the suggestion the other blogger had – just put the L&R on the dash in some sort of covered pocket. And killing a cop as a hate crime? Absolutely.
All good ideas. Make killing a cop a hate crime, and approve budgets for body cameras in all major cities. Make it legal for a cop to be filmed on your person and make it legal for cops in public to be filmed FROM A DISTANCE (so they can do their job), and I think in concert with the new thinking inside police forces that I’m seeing, we’ll see the changes you’ve already seen in Toronto. Like I said, though, these are VERY large, very bureaucratic, and very political (chiefs are elected, remember) institutions in the US. It will take some more time for the riff-raff to get tossed and for the changes that were already initiated a decade ago (based upon our on work) to percolate up.
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Although I certainly identify with the Left politically, I am equally a strong supporter of police (and military). Enforcing the law – and doing it well – is a difficult and often thankless job. I think anyone in service to the state deserves the best tools to do the job. This doesn’t mean large pay and it doesn’t mean privilege; it means tangible and accountable support to serve. That service is for all… including that portion of the population from which a greater portion of criminal activity comes. Shooting them or treating them differently based on this group membership undermines the social capital needed to serve. In other words, police make their job harder and more dangerous by assuming this population is different and should be treated differently. That’s the racism at work and it must be eradicated from those trained and armed to serve the whole (just like gender considerations needs to be eradicated from the military).
Being a member of the Left means I see and experience the kind of apologetics you mention all the time, and it is very frustrating. Again, I turn to the parenting analogy: just like parents who fail to understand the necessity of enforced boundaries coupled to creeping responsibility for their kids to learn to handle are not helping them to become happy, healthy, responsible adults by allowing them to avoid consequences, so too is excusing antisocial and gang behaviour without strict law enforcement boundaries helping these troubled youth become mature and law abiding responsible adults; instead, we are developing a generation of idiotic and irresponsible adolescents in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who continue to be challenged by and often unable to cope well with a harsh reality… the one that really does exist beyond the basement of their parents’ house or, later, outside of their girlfriend’s/boyfriend’s low income and subsidized apartment. Throwing public money and lame excuses for the problems owned by others solves nothing; going after the root problem we own and making measurable changes does. And that’s what I’m after in the public domain: equal and fair treatment under one law. That’s not unreasonable and it is possible. And it all starts from the top through polices and procedures that are accountable to those who fund them: the public as a whole.
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Tildeb – if this goes under your comment to me, please know that this isn’t directed specifically or necessarily towards you. (Typing this from a four-line window and can’t see the thread.)
It is, however, directed at VW and a bunch of the armchair “activists” here.
For all them, I’d like to remind you that the five cops killed in Dallas two nights ago had nothing to do with the shootings in Louisiana or Minnesota, and on top of that, they were were killed by a racist, lawless, prejudist, stereotyping, murderer with zero care or concern for innocent life. These are all proven facts.
Yet here you are, all you “Fair Share” Liberals, with your phony posturing and grandstanding at the ready for all the things that you say you’re supposedly against – prejudism, stereotyping, racism, lawlessness, violence, and murder.
A coward fires on innocent people for racist reasons, and here you are immediately rushing to empathize and defend the racist – who without any doubt has been proven to represent everything you all PRETEND to hate and be against. Telling, isn’t it?
Not a single comment of condemnation for a racist conducting a horrible act of racism, and not a single comment expressing any sort of sadness or sympathy for the cops or their families themselves. For all your bullshit on speaking up, these are the things you always stay silent on (like you do with rape committed by illegal immigrants, but that’s another matter).
So what is it, Libtards? In your minds are no cops innocent, and therefore “they got what they had coming to them”? Is that the self-talk going on in your head? Sure seems to be, and if so not only is that hypocritical in its own right (with all your self-righteous “judgment” of others), it’s totally disgusting and pathetic as well, making you totally disgusting and pathetic as well – especially when cops are the first people you little whiny wussbags are wanting to call the moment someone hurts your little sensitivities or your feelings when a “micro-aggression” occurs.
So go ahead, idiots – keep preaching about your superior morality and your principles when you’re so quick to abandon them from the first bullet that gets fired from a racist killer. Keep telling me here, over and over, what you all PRETEND to care about.
And while you’re at it, the next time you’re about to dial the cops – for whatever reason you all of a sudden now either like, want, or need them for – please do the world a favor by hanging up and letting your house get robbed, or your ass get kicked, by a bunch of hoodlums. You’ll have deserved it.
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“A coward fires on innocent people for racist reasons, and here you are immediately rushing to empathize and defend the racist – who without any doubt has been proven to represent everything you all PRETEND to hate and be against. Telling, isn’t it?
Not a single comment of condemnation for a racist conducting a horrible act of racism”
What a load of rubbish! This is what I wrote:
“I would be furious about any mindless revenge attacks too, right enough, but they would certainly not be the focus of my fury.”
This post is about your ranty furious post belittling an entire movement that is trying make the point that the trend of killing black people is not alright. You can obviously be furious about five people killed in a – what did I call it? yes, mindless revenge attack – but you’ve framed your whole discussion around hatred for people who have a right to be furious about their own unjustified killings. That is not okay VR Kaine. Do a post being sad about the random deaths of innocent people, being horrified that someone picked targets for murder based on skin colour, but don’t attack a movement that seeks stop random deaths of innocent people based on the colour of their skin. You make no sense, and you reveal your own prejudice, as you continue to do by quoting me statistics that black people are more likely to be criminals therefore their victimisation and killing by police officers, even when innocent, is somehow justifiable.
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“Did you know that a black person is 18 times more likely to be killed by one of his own then by a white police officer?”
No, I didn’t. Can you show me your source so we can check it’s true? But even if it is true, would it make it defensible that so many have been killed by policemen in situations where they clearly weren’t a threat? Do you think it’s ‘normal’ for police to go around killing people because they have a problem with a car light, or because they selling DVDs?
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Here goes VW cherry-picking again, but alright, I’ll play.
There’s a number of elephants in the room surrounding this issue that nobody wants to talk about. One is that of leadership and absentee fatherhood – it’s epidemic amongst poor African Americans and starts everything off on the wrong foot. Another is black on black crime, another after that is black unemployment.
The fuel for the fire, though, and what turns it from a smolder to a raging flame is a “thug” culture that both promotes and glorifies violence towards police, as well as misogyny and drug crime. Who is out there constantly calling for the actual death of cops? Only one group. Are you all here going to have the guts to name it? Be honest and call it like it is.
And then consider that on top of an already trigger-happy culture that is everyday America. Case-in-point: the gentleman that was walking in the Dallas protest with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder. He was totally peaceful, responsible, and respectful, yet In America they believe that his carrying should be a “right”. I think that’s ridiculous, but it remains a right in that country nonetheless.
I have no problem with the attack on certain gun rights, but an attack on police forces, automatically painting them all as systemically racist? That I have a huge problem with. I have worked with a number of police forces across America, including two that have major protests going on as I write this. There are “bad” cops out there, for sure. There are in every country.
People are people, and it’s no different than the fact that there are bad doctors and bad nurses who slip through the system who either have beliefs or fallibility that leads to the death of an innocent. Give your head a shake and look at the stats, however. Just as those doctors and nurses are in the fringe minority, so are whatever Klan rejects are left in the police forces – and that’s even in the most southern of districts and especially those of major cities.
So what are you going to do in the meantime, VW? Ban all cops because of the few justified shootings that are now caught on camera, or the few unjustified where the cops are already in jail? At the same time are you going to ban all doctors now because of bad handwriting? Or send them to “bad handwriting school”? I know it’s cool and fashionable for you to try and rip on police, and say how you watched the video and try to act all horrified and that you’re somehow on the right side of the problem, but I would say you’re STILL part of the problem because you liberal progressive whites are still trying to absolve the losers and the thugs in our society (of any color, race, or gender) of ANY responsibility for anything whatsoever. Who’s the Dallas sniper to you? A hero? Be honest and say out loud to what degree you believe he’s justified in his actions, then tell me why your first action was defend him when I called him out as a loser racist coward.
And by the way, while you'[re on your little fake “look how non-racist and objective I am” fake crusade here, do you know that cops killed twice as many whites as blacks in 2015 where weapons were present? Did you know that blacks commit 75% of all violent crime in NYC even though they are only 23% of the population?
And while cops killed more UNARMED black men than white men 6:1 – a stat you “fair share” liberals love to throw around – when you look at the actual facts, a large percentage of these deaths were to due a thug trying to steal the cop’s gun, or a discharge when the thug grabbed it, and a number of those deaths, even though a black person died, the shooting had nothing to do with the victim’s race (i.e. bystander hit by stray bullet).
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“Who is out there constantly calling for the actual death of cops? Only one group. Are you all here going to have the guts to name it? Be honest and call it like it is.”
I don’t know who is, seriously. Tell me what group it is and what their membership is.
“There are “bad” cops out there, for sure. There are in every country.”
Oh indeed. And are these bad cops in other countries systematically killing certain groups of people for no good reason? If you can show me a parallel I’d be interested.
“Ban all cops because of the few justified shootings that are now caught on camera, or the few unjustified where the cops are already in jail?
What cases are you referring to? If you could name them that would be useful.
“At the same time are you going to ban all doctors now because of bad handwriting?”
I’m not sure what kind of comparison you’re trying to draw with health professionals. Is their bad handwriting killing a certain group of people? Is there evidence that ‘mistakes’ leading to death happen disproportionately to black people?
“Who’s the Dallas sniper to you? A hero?”
Please read the post again and don’t ask silly questions that are answered up there.
“do you know that cops killed twice as many whites as blacks in 2015 where weapons were present? Did you know that blacks commit 75% of all violent crime in NYC even though they are only 23% of the population?”
Assuming you’re right, does that make it justified to kill black people in the manner we’ve seen recently? In light of those statistics, explain to me why the guy being pinned down by two policemen with guns needed to be shot – was it six times in the head? Explain to me why a man in a car being pulled over for a dodgy light who volunteers the information that he has a gun needs to be shot four times? Because of your statistics above? Does that make it all okay?
Listen, VR Kaine, racism isn’t just the KKK wanting to lynch people because of the colour of their skin. It’s making negative assumptions about people because of their appearance. By quoting those statistics above to me, you seem to be saying that it’s perfectly okay for police officers to pump bullets into anyone that they judge *looks* like they might be a criminal. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
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VW: “As I understand it, these murders come on the back of many more deaths in dubious circumstances. And in all of these cases, no-one has been held accountable.
“In all of those cases no one has been held accountable”. That is such a blatantly ignorant statement. They’ve just finished a number of grand juries where a number of cops have gone to jail for murder. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30339943) Doesn’t fit your narrative, though, so it makes sense you wouldn’t care to look.
And as that article will show, there are some shitty cops out there, but if this new generation of police chiefs aren’t taking care of that, OR ARE UNDER-REPORTING, and the press isn’t doing their jobs, then body cameras and iphones will.
And for all the liberal bleedhearts trying to act like police “target” blacks because of their skin color, you’re clueless. Police don’t “target” blacks. They target gang-bangers, and looters, and robbers, and drug dealers, and pimps in the lower-income neighborhood where those crimes happen the most. Oh, and should I remind you again what the stats are on which demographic commits those crimes the most? Going to admit the facts yet?
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I’m not sure what you think that article shows, other than that a tiny proportion are charged, an even tinier proportion found guilty and that sentences are lenient to say the least.
” Police don’t “target” blacks. They target gang-bangers, and looters, and robbers, and drug dealers, and pimps in the lower-income neighborhood where those crimes happen the most. Oh, and should I remind you again what the stats are on which demographic commits those crimes the most? Going to admit the facts yet?”
Your interesting argument again. If someone is deemed to *look* like a criminal, it’s okay to shoot them even when they’re not a threat. The problem with judging people by their looks is that we as humans aren’t very good at doing it:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2011/aug/15/people-other-races-look-alike
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“If someone is deemed to *look* like a criminal, it’s okay to shoot them even when they’re not a threat”
I never said that, you know it, and once again this is the level that you take your bullshit to. Who – anywhere – is saying that it’s OK to shoot someone for how they look? So don’t whine to me about someone putting words in your mouth when that’s exactly what you do with ridiculous comments like the one you just made.
And as for your research, try to make it at least relevant to the area of law enforcement. Here’s some more law-enforcement-specific research (by a black guy, no less) that throws even more of your loser bullshit theories out the window.
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“I never said that, you know it” Well why are you at pains to throw around statistics demonstrating that some black people are criminals? I don’t understand what you want to me to take from that. For example, please explain what I’m to understand from this: “Police don’t “target” blacks. They target gang-bangers, and looters, and robbers, and drug dealers, and pimps in the lower-income neighborhood where those crimes happen the most. Oh, and should I remind you again what the stats are on which demographic commits those crimes the most? Going to admit the facts yet?” Black people are criminals therefore they are targeted by police? As you feel you have demonstrated that black people are criminals, you want me to understand that their lives don’t matter? Or is it just that they shouldn’t campaign for their lives to matter, in case a criminal with a gun kills innocent people? I can’t imagine what else you’re trying to say here.
And what theories of mine shown by your article are out the window? This is an article on one study that collected data from a very limited selection of police forces. What do your FBI national statistics tell you?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.1a4aa8b24c5e
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“As you feel you have demonstrated that black people are criminals, you want me to understand that their lives don’t matter? Or is it just that they shouldn’t campaign for their lives to matter, in case a criminal with a gun kills innocent people?”
There you go again. Wow.
Do the hyperboles and “appeals to feels” from you ever end?
And is there any belief you hold which DOESN’T start and end with pure conjecture? Why even pretend like facts or data matter to you?
First, everything with you HAS to be about racism with you the minute someone of color is involved – even when people of color are telling you you’re being ridiculous.
Second, you have ZERO perspective from inside police forces, especially those in America and in particular, the American south, so you can ask all you want but quit trying to pretend that you do.
Third, as I said, the only arguments you can ever come up with are emotional appeals, and fourth, whenever data does come in to contradict the “it’s only conjecture but damn it makes me feel like a good person” position you take, do you take it straight on, or do you bring in some ‘human interest’ piece from some rag British newspaper as a refute? Clearly the latter, which is totally asinine, and
Fifth, you don’t even have the emotional fortitude or objectivity to call a white-hating cop-killer a racist.
So what is the point (ever) of discussing anything with you? Unless it’s – I don’t know – “cloud shapes”(?), with your head so far up your “look at how morally superior I am!” ass, what’s anyone supposed to learn from you?
I’ve seen you do similar things with basically every other topic you post on here.
Fine. You’ve done as much race-baiting as I can handle for a day, so here’s two more articles with legitimate law-enforcement data you can waste your time with, which directly refute your conjecture and half-assed “I want to feel like I’m moral!” conclusions. With it, please enjoy shoving your head further up your ass.
http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race-and-violent-crime/
“Some observers argue that what causes the overwhelming preponderance of black-on-white over white-on-black violence is “chance of encounter,” due to the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks in the American population. However, there are only about 30 percent more Hispanics than blacks, yet black-on-Hispanic violence is almost as lopsided as black-on-white violence. This suggests blacks may be deliberately targeting both whites and Hispanics.”
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VW: unlike yourself, people who can actually contribute to solving these issues are able to listen to, acknowledge, understand, and agree with the following four items:
1) That there is systemic racism inside the law enforcement and justice system.
2) That “thug culture” is both a contributor to and a result of this problem.
3) That neither side should be getting a free pass
4) That honesty, leadership, education/training, and greater mechanisms of transparency and accountability on both sides are needed for a solution.
And unlike you, people actually working to solve the problem can read the following four articles and be OK with what they’re saying (meaning they can accept that all are either “right” or “true” at once):
1) “I’m a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing”
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
2) “Atlanta Police Officer Fired After Deadly Shooting”
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/atlanta-police-identify-officer-fired-after-deadly/nrwrH/
3) “Darren Wilson Cleared of All Charges”
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/03/04/darren-wilson-cleared-in-justice-department-probe-of-michael-brown-shooting
4) Mother Who Shielded Her Sons During Dallas Shooting Thanks Police ‘Heroes’
http://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-shielded-sons-dallas-shooting-police-heroes/story?id=40476454
What do these articles show? That while there is a problem of racism in law enforcement and justice not everything is racism. They show that Michael Brown was a thug and although tragic, his shooting was entirely justified. They show that the cops in Dallas that day – especially the ones who were slain – were (are) brave heroes who deserve to be honored, and they show that all these things are FACTS.
But can you handle it? Can the facts from each of these articles and these truths actually exist in your head all at the same time? Or can only the ones that cry “racism everywhere” that you so desperately want to believe is true?
Of course these truths can’t all exist in your head. That’s how desperate you are to cling and belong to something, that’s how morally and intellectually dishonest you are, that’s why you insult me and that’s why you rush to empathize and defend a racist loser coward cop-killer the instant I attacked him.
And what were you hoping to get for that defense of your racist shooter buddy, anyways? A sense of superior morality? A sense of empathy? Applause? Righteousness? A hug from him?
I really don’t care, but it sure is telling. Amazing the lengths you’ll go to for some sense of belonging, huh? I’m sure your buddy Micah would both be thanking you right now, and be proud. Way to fight the fight, black sister. Go to bed proud, and enjoy that bandwagon that you’re on.
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What a terribly dishonest comment Mr Kaine. Just look at your hateful post – heaping scorn on a movement that wants to change society as much as you claim to do. It’s not acceptable, and you know it. Hence this desperate attempt to create a narrative that doesn’t exist on my post. As soon as you’re confronted with anything, you shift the argument ground and create a new demon to attack. Roll back to the beginning. You called people engaged in peaceful demonstration, designed to highlight the number of black people being killed, assclowns and thugs. You suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement supports the killing of innocent people, just because of the actions of one individual launching at attack during one of their peaceful demonstrations.
At no point have I defended or praised the Dallas shooter. I stated that this sort of thing is a mindless revenge attack that rightly evokes anger. But direct your anger at appropriate places. Don’t admit that racism exists and is a problem, and then go on to attack a important movement that has given people a voice. I’m sure even you don’t get a sense of moral superiority from either your post or the disjointed straw man and bitter rants you’ve been scattering around the comments here.
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Point-by-point takedown:
“Hence this desperate attempt to create a narrative that doesn’t exist on my post.”
Desperate? Could you be more high on yourself? You have no credibility on the matter, zero perspective, and offer zero value, so why on earth would I care about convince you of anything? The facts are already on my side.
And your “narrative”, the one that supposedly “doesn’t exist”? It’s all over your comments and posts, and here it is:
1) all American cops target black people indiscriminately and purely out of racism,
2) You chose the side of the Dallas shooters and those calling for violence rather than the police (even if by your omissions)
3) Your arguments are based almost entirely on conjecture and appeal to emotion rather than fact (but because you feel you have moral highground, that’s plenty enough), and
4) EVERYTHING to you that involves a colored person has to involve blatant racism.
I’ve already quoted you a dozen times on this, so I shouldn’t have to point out your own words to you yet again, so just “nut up” and own it.
“You called people engaged in peaceful demonstration, designed to highlight the number of black people being killed, assclowns and thugs.”
Haha. Nice try. There’s a difference between protesters and “thugs”, you know – or can’t your brain tell the difference between the two? Either way, my vitriol has been towards the thugs – period – either here or anywhere else.
“…engaged in peaceful demonstration…”
Haha! Wow. You really want to think so, huh? Has to be that way, right, to fit that “all cops are evil racists” belief of yours again? Well unfortunately facts get in your way.
Was Ferguson (Brown) “peaceful”? Nope. Baltimore (Gray)? Nope.
And did this black woman’s house burn down during earlier protests because BLM is “peaceful”? Nope. http://www.headlinepolitics.com/black-lives-matter-rioters-ruin-more-than-property/
And this is all BEFORE the last two shootings, so once again you’re COMPLETELY DISINGENUOUS AND FULL OF SHIT.
Now, of course it’s even worse. The BLM leaders – knowing they’re about to seriously get their asses kicked – have to now call for peace INSTEAD of more violence. A change in tune as a result of Dallas.
That doesn’t fit YOUR narrative, though, so enter your conveniently selective ignorance that the riots, fires, attacks, threats – COP MURDERS – none of it ever happened UNTIL Dallas. Wow. Is there no limit to how far you will go to keep denying facts? Clearly there doesn’t seem to be.
“You suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement supports the killing of innocent people, just because of the actions of one individual launching at attack during one of their peaceful demonstrations.”
And here you go again – cherry picking. Sure, WV – that’s all I’ve said all along, that this is all about “one guy”. Are you HIGH? You just gave me shit for blaming things on a bunch of thugs just a minute ago, and here you are trying to lecture me on strawmen? Please.
And then there’s your convenient (for you) lack of facts yet again. BLM is “peaceful”? Let’s line up the facts again, shall we?
1) NYC BLM rally: “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.” Was it one person chanting this? Nope. The entire protest under a Black Lives Matter sign.
2) Trump cancels Miami and Chicago events due to BLM death threats/threats of riots. Were these from just one person? Nope – the BLM movement.
3) “Agitators hurl rocks at Phoenix Police, saying ‘we should shoot you'” That sounds peaceful.
4) You saw the video I posted prior about whites getting attacked inside BLM. Peaceful? Nope.
Or this one…
5) Deranged Black Lives Matter Supporter Shot Dead After Breaking Into St. Louis Police Officer’s Home. That’s BLM being peaceful? Nope. And by the way, home invader – good riddance. Charge a cop, expect to get shot. Break into someone’s home? Expect to get shot. Simple stuff.
Wait – but these are evil, murderous, racist cops and evil, racist Trump according to you, right?. Surely BLM leaders aren’t targeting “innocent” white civilians, are they? Wrong again.
1) BLM co-founder has to “pray” that she won’t “kill men and white people”. (Citynews.ca)
2) King Noble, on BLM youtube channel: “it’s open season on white people”.
3) Tef Poe: ““Dear White People if Trump wins young niggas such as myself are fully hell bent on inciting riots everywhere we go. Just so you know.”
That’s just from the leaders. Wait until you get down into the actual protests. Either way, you trying to call BLM “peaceful” against so much evidence to the contrary either before or after Dallas is an absolute joke.
“At no point have I defended or praised the Dallas shooter.
Really? Because you refusing to call him a racist is a defense. You reading my condemnation of him over on my blog, and then two seconds later coming over to yours and saying I’M what’s sad about America and look at what a racist I am compared to him is defense of him.
And have you shown any legitimate sympathy for the cops or their families at that time? Any appreciation for anything that cops do? Zero. Condemnation of cops as racists, though? Absolutely – so now you agree with him.
There’s only one of two sides you can be on – the cops or his – and with all your anti-cop and pro-BLM (and with it, pro-violence) rhetoric you started with immediately after I called him out, it’s obvious which side you’re on. You can’t even say BLM is violent, or that someone who targets whites is a racist! What is that if not a defense?
“Don’t admit that racism exists and is a problem, and then go on to attack a important movement that has given people a voice.
I’ll do whatever I please. One, I have no problem separating a thug from a protestor. Two, I have no problem pulling race out of the equation and holding people accountable based solely upon their own actions and beliefs. Three, I can call out something for what it is not caring if I’ll lose the approval of a bunch of Liberal Suckasses on the one hand, or Right-Wing Nutjobs on the other. Four, I’m actually doing something about the problem – as both a job and a passion, as opposed to you who is conveniently sitting on your ass race-mongering and playing “cop hater” and “thug lover” because for you, this is just something you’re trying on for the moment because it’s fashionable. You’re in no position, nor do you have any basis whatsoever on which to lecture me or tell me what either to do, or what I should be doing regarding this issue.
I’m sure even you don’t get a sense of moral superiority from either your post or the disjointed straw man and bitter rants you’ve been scattering around the comments here.
I get a sense of moral superiority only from you, and only because out of everyone here (that I’ve seen) you’re the only one who is totally disingenuous, selectively-ignorant, cowardly, and a fraud on this issue.
And bitter? Absolutely. What I do is minuscule compared to what these cops do and have to deal with every day in the US, and yet here you are with your bullshit moral posturing as though you’re “in the know” – automatically convicting cops on the one hand, and automatically giving a free pass to the thugs and killers on the other. Like I’ve said before, you try and act like you’re all about fairness, equality, and justice on this issue but your constant attempt to twist words and ignore facts is a dead giveaway – all you’re after here is yet another attempt to appease your white guilt.
Well on that note, I have a news flash for you: it turns out that you’re not black, and you never will be, so when are you going to stop pretending like you are and trying to earn “I’m above race!” merit badges from BLM? Twice now you’ve had even black people telling you something isn’t about race and yet to the bitter end you’ll still trying to insist that it is. It’s a “wannabe” move that’s pretty pathetic if you ask me, but hey – it’s your blog – to each their own.
Enjoy the next riot! 🙂
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Excerpt from your post:
Again, tarnishing the whole Black Lives Matter movement for the actions of a handful of people in a video which, granted, looks incredibly disrespectful given what just happened. But it’s handful of drunk looking young people, clearly not representative of any organised protest. What was the rest of the protest like in Dallas before one individual not directly involved in the movement started shooting police officers? It was peaceful, wasn’t it?
For all your blocks of text yet again putting silly words in my mouth, you haven’t explained why Black Lives Matter, as a movement which is and has been largely peaceful, is so offensive to you.
Clare has left a great comment down below, read it and go on to the read the link. Maybe something, somewhere will help you see out of this.
As for your ‘facts’, do a little digging:
“The chant I didn’t hear on Dec. 13 was the one captured on a cell phone video and uttered by a small group numbering a few dozen, marching in a cluster behind a makeshift banner:
“What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”…And yet, evidence shows the group that engaged in the death chant against police weren’t part of Millions March NYC. And if they did indeed march on Dec. 13, they did so long after the larger protest had moved downtown. They were not part of the main group. For one thing, according to the video, which was posted to Youtube the same day as the protest, the “dead cops” chant took place after sunset. You can see from the video that city lights are already on. ”
http://www.msnbc.com/the-reid-report/the-truth-about-the-dead-cops-chant
So, a few dozen people not part of the main march, and completely condemned by the march organisers, who issued this:
“On behalf of the Millions March NYC, we express our deepest condolences to the families of the officers who were killed on Saturday. Our march last weekend was a peaceful outcry that senseless violence in our society is harmful to trust, community, and security. This tragedy is in no way connected to our march, or ongoing protests against police brutality, discrimination, and profiling – and we condemn, and are disappointed with any entity that would try to imply such connection. As New Yorkers, we will continue to march for a peaceful society, where trust between communities and law enforcement is finally achieved.”
I know you find this all difficult to face and that’s why you’re being so nasty. It’s a typical response.
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The 7-11 thugs were upsetting, but the Dallas protesters were awesome. Especially the next day, when many of them were speaking on Fox. Articulate, polite, and making constructive arguments. I said as much on another blog, but perhaps not here.
Sad as the Dallas tragedy is, I believe it has shown the dangerous power of rhetoric on the other side – all this talk about “cop killing”. Everyone now (finally) is asking for peaceful protests which is good to see.
Trump has had to tone his rhetoric down (although, good luck on that holding), but I think in general we’re seeing BLM tone theirs down, too. Hopefully this will bring people together, if they don’t let the thugs in there to eff it up just like Occupy did. We’ll see.
Will respond to the rest of your comment later.
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Well, I see the media has properly fed the masses with the usual misinformation.
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Well, I see Insanity is making more comments that have no facts to back them up. Nice technique, I’m getting used to it now, but I miss the days when you made some sort of effort.
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This entire thread is full of the fact that the media has once again been successful at feeding people what they want to hear. And people have been swallowing up all that sugary goodness too. There’s not much I can say when people are convinced they already have all the answers.
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And there’s not much I can say when people make comments that don’t contain any facts. Do you have a post at least that outlines your thinking on this subject?
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My last two or 3 posts, I suppose.
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VM said, “Should police officers have guns when they’ve demonstrated they can’t use them sensibly?”
Very British of you, VW! I’m sorry, but this is a very over-generalizing question! Perhaps under this logic we shouldn’t allow doctors or nurses to administer meds or do surgeries, either, since there are so many deaths “under dubious circumstances” and “no one is held accountable.” While we’re at it, shut down all the fast food places, too, since there’s “too many” cases of workers pissing in the soup, showing us that (immigrant) cooks can’t use kitchens “sensibly”. Haha!
And to the gentlemen trying to challenge the 21x stat for crime – the answer is YES – drugs, prostitution, guns, violent assaults, robberies, home invasions – unfortunately a lot are committed by African Americans. Also, young white kids smoke their pot in houses and backyards. Young black kids in Compton smoke theirs on street corners out in front of cops which is where they drink their booze, too. Take a ride-along in a major US city and you’ll see this.
And again some more reality: choose to dress like a thug and walk around with a water-pistol that looks like a gun, and guess what? You’re likely going to get shot. And rush a cop who has just told you to put my hands on your head and kneel down, guess what? Expect to get shot if you’re any color. Put a little real-world into the stats your side always loves to quote so much and I’m pretty sure you’ll find that it totally debunks your “targeting” and racism argument. So much your side pretends to see (and then “know”) from a couple Youtube videos.
Anyways, I live half my year in Canada. We don’t have anywhere near the same violent crime problems here as we do in the US, even though we have fairly easy access to firearms. Plus, we also have the same access to “NWA” music as the US does. So why the difference in violent crime?
My personal belief is that the lack of male leadership is at the root of a lot of these problems, and a second part of the problem is the embracing of the thug life.
Makes sense – who do you think is going to commit more crime from an early age – a kid idolizing Lady Gaga and her talking about being kind to people of all types, or a kid idolizing some “street level” rap artist with a felony rap sheet who is constantly praising drug use, murder, rape, cop-killing, vitriol, and giving “snitches stitches” who lives in the same kind of neighborhood where all that comes from?
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Insanity Bites:
“Well, I see the media has properly fed the masses with the usual misinformation.”
What are you referring to?
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“VR Kaine will be at pains to assure us all that he’s not racist, or an assclown. Yet there’s something about his post that makes me suspect he’s both.”
Oh, right – the morally-superior faux justice warrior thing again, and once again you jumping on the bandwagon-of-the-day to (apparently) appease your white guilt. Fine. Ok. Knock yourself out. 🙂
Me, I’m actually in these communities – both the inner city and in the law enforcement communities, working to help both and have for many years now so I’m wondering where you think you have even a thread of perspective or insight on the matter. Yet you are quick to believe that American police offers operate without accountability and with impunity?
Oh well. Must be desperate for comiserating and clicks, hence the race-baiting yet again. Like I said, knock yourself out.
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http://qz.com/727462/in-dallas-the-primary-argument-of-the-nra-and-pro-gun-advocates-was-completely-debunked/
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Thanks! Useful statistics in there. And looks like an interesting new thing to have on the Reader.
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Have you come across Prof. Sara Ahmed? No matter how much evidence you have of racism and sexism, no matter how many documents, communications, encounters, no matter how much research you can refer to, or words you can defer to, words that might carry a history as an insult, what you have is deemed as insufficient. The more you have to show the more eyes seem to roll. My proposition is simple: that the evidence we have of racism and sexism is deemed insufficient because of racism and sexism. Indeed racism and sexism work by disregarding evidence or by rendering evidence unreliable or suspicious – often by rendering those who have direct experience of racism and sexism unreliable and suspicious. This disregarding – which is at once a form of regarding – has a central role in maintaining an order of things. Simply put: that evidence of something is deemed insufficient is a mechanism for reproducing something.
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Thanks, that’s a great quote. I need to read her posts, they’re always so huge I don’t bother clicking on them. And of course I’ve come across her, you introduce me to all the best blogs!
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“This disregarding – which is at once a form of regarding – has a central role in maintaining an order of things. Simply put: that evidence of something is deemed insufficient is a mechanism for reproducing something.”
Hi Clare, I’d agree in general but that’s one of those statements that i believe is too general to be at all useful. Sure, we can check for our own confirmation bias, but I think happens in general with people regarding matters that are so emotionally charged is that it’s confirmation bias to the extreme.
Take the “cop racism” matter, for instance. There’s new research that shows that many of the anti-cop justifications are simply canards. Does that get acknowledged or considered however? Not at all – it immediately gets disregarded by the left. On the other side, many hard-core right-wingers now take that research as “fact” and try and use it to erase much of the research and anecdotal evidence which is completely legit.
VW directed your comment at me in a (weak) attempt to (cowardly) insinuate that I’m guilty of what you’re talking about. There’s much evidence to show this isn’t true. On the contrary, I believe she’s guilty of it in spades. BLM leaders have to plead with their protestors for peace, and yet VW wants to vehemently insist that it’s a “peaceful” organization because of all she WANTS to see in it, not what’s actually there.
So yeah, when she does that my eyes do roll as I’m sure do many others.
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Well, it’s a relief you’ve checked your unconscious bias and haven’t found yourself lacking! 😀 You’re hilarious.
If I had the time, it might be interesting to go through your comments on this post and count up all the personal jibes and insults you’re taking the time to hurl. I think that says something about your argument, if the best you can do to defend the racist attitude in your post is attack me for being a liberal.
“And so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime; when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how to respond if stopped by a police officer — “yes, sir,” “no, sir” — but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door, still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy — when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid. We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members again and again and again — it hurts.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/07/13/no-black-lives-matter-is-not-inherently-racist/
I’m sorry you think I’m listening to the wrong voices coming from the USA, but I’m afraid these words make much more sense than yours.
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“Well, it’s a relief you’ve checked your unconscious bias…”
Sure. You planning on checking yours anytime soon?
“I think that says something about your argument, if the best you can do to defend the racist attitude in your post is attack me for being a liberal.”
The best I can do? Please. Argument? You’re not even in one. You don’t even have the guts (or the objectivity) to call the Dallas shooter a racist, for one. For another, you haven’t challenged one fact or bit of research without immediately defaulting back to your beloved victim card again. My “argument” si that the facts and reality speak for themselves. My “argument” is that you have no perspective, because you’re out of touch with the reality of the situation. My “argument” is screw you for trying to pretend like you know something just because you can reblog some flower comment from somewhere. Try a little honesty and reality for once.. If you ever got out of your armchair you might experience a little of both from time to time. It’s not so bad, really.
As for the insults, I throw them at you because your perspective and self-righteousness on issues such as law enforcement and race are an absolute joke. I throw them at you because I believe you’re not only a hypocrite, but gutless on this issue.
You have no concept of what leadership is, no concept of what action is, and no guts whatsoever in terms of actually getting into the trenches somewhere and trying to solve something. Instead, you’re one the crowd where all you can do is act all self-righteous and like you’ve somehow earned the right to judge anyone, anywhere, from your lazy-ass armchair. Typical “Fair Share” Liberal – knows zero, pretends the opposite, thinks they’ve done enough on something just by spitting out some meme or book passage somewhere, then ensists – through their overblown sense of entitlement – that everyone else now has to protect them, fight for them, pay for them, and solve THEIR problems instead of you lazy-asses getting up and actually solving a few of them yourself. I give tree moss more credit than you people deserve – it at least serves a function.
“…we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid.”
And you also can’t dismiss many of the incorrect and unsubstantiated facts underlying said movement, either, if you a) want to pretend like you’re objective, or b) want to actually solve something. So again, for the umpteenth time, open your other eye or pull your head out of your ass and we’ll be able to actually discuss something.
Re: the passage itself, BLM has an opportunity now to smarten up and get their shit together, lest they risk turning themselves into a pathetic afterthought like Occupy did. I’ve held that position all along. I’ve given them that chance in the beginning and as a result of Dallas, I’m giving it to them now, but I’m not going to pull a “you” and give them a total free pass. They don’t deserve it automatically, and they haven’t earned it.
“I’m sorry you think I’m listening to the wrong voices coming from the USA, but I’m afraid these words make much more sense than yours.
You keep trying to steer this to the easy argument that you want it to be, Violet, that we’re somehow arguing morality here when we’re not. I get it – that’s the only hammer you have and everything’s a nail, but if you want to sit here and argue right/wrong voices with me and yet you can’t even call the Dallas sniper a racist, or you can’t acknowledge research that’s a direct contradiction to BLM’s and your core positions, then you’re useless.
Fine – you can enjoy the armchair with the rest of your kind, but the rest of us have work to do.
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My “argument” (“And
ThugLivesMatterBlackLivesMatter protesters? I’ll call them what they are, too: ASSCLOWNS.”) is that the facts and reality speak for themselves.Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence toward black people and advocates for dignity, justice, and respect. Note the call to action: advocates. In a written response to the Dallas shooting of 11 police officers, it states, BLM homepage says “To assign the actions of one person to an entire movement is dangerous and irresponsible.”
Enter VR Kaine who claims the shooter must have been a racist.but that the ‘Left’ will not admit as much. Well, he was many things, including a patriotic soldier putting his life on the line for such right wing leaders and ‘activists’ as VR Kaine. Of cpourse that means shit for someone like VR Kaine. All that matter is that he targeted police officers in Dallas to some success and said he wanted to kill more white people before being blown up by the Dallas police. Certainly in that sense, the guy was demonstrating racism and he paid the ultimate price for acting on it. But in regards to calling the BLM movement one constituted entirely of ‘thugs’ (its founding and chapter leadership is composed mostly of gay women), so what? How does the action of one man define this movement?
Well, VR Kaine is convinced it does (carefully selecting only the particular actions of a few people disreputable enough to choose them – dismiss any good stuff – that he then deems to be representative of the whole). And so offering overwhelming evidence of a deeply racist society from which the various police forces and court systems that demonstrate institutionalized racism doesn’t matter, you see. That these racist institutions in general and its uniformed representatives are targeted by BLM protesters is the real crime in his mind.. because although there is some institutionalized racism, it doesn’t really matter… the protesters are all assclowns, you see. Their organization is thuggery. Confronting institutionalized racism with demonstrations is, by VR Kaine’s definition, thuggery in action (and racist, too).
VR Kaine does exactly what BLM warns people against doing: assigning the action of the sniper to an entire movement, all of whose members according to VR Kaine are ‘thugs’ and whose Dallas protesters are all ‘assclowns.’ What he doesn;t do is realize that his way of thinking about confronting institutionalized racism is itself part of the problem that maintains and sustains embedded racism… willing to treat some of the symptoms but never, ever, the disease itself… you know, the mental disease of attributing negative group attributes to all the individuals who constitute it. That’s what’s dangerous and irresponsible in his ‘leadership’ thinking. That’s the reality, filled as it by many VR Kaines who demonstrate racist thinking and yet believe themselves unbiased.
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I appreciate your comments and points so far, Tildeb. We’re going to disagree on many things down the line within your comment I’m sure, starting with BLM’s mission.
You say that it “campaigns against violence toward black people and advocates for dignity, justice, and respect.”, but you’re conveniently leaving out some key details. First, how does it do that? Second, if it was truly “campaigning against violence” then why isn’t it campaigning in its own community? It isn’t.
And I love how you all just conveniently want to focus on words in spite of someone (or a group’s) actions, too. After all, we’re defined by our actions, aren’t we? In BLM’s case, it’s not their actions but rather their inactions that are of note, and particularly what they give a free pass to: rushes to judgment in the Michael Brown case, or any officer-involved shooting? Check. Looting and riots in Ferguson? Check. Blocking free speech? Check. Murder, drugs, rape, and violence in their own communities? Check. Those four alone are enough to challenge their so-called mandate of “dignity, justice, and respect”, don’t you think? Rational people would.
Then you want to try and push the narrative that all the black community’s problems – or the bulk of them at least – stem from some bogeyman. Facts are against you on this one, too. The abandonment culture, thug culture, grievance culture – all black problems that start and end there and guess who will tell you that? Black people, that’s who. Not the grievance hustlers that appeal to you, but go to a town hall, or a church, or a barbershop, or a community store sometime and listen to the people you’re pretending that you both speak for and listen to.
And wow – you read a blog or some paper somewhere. How wonderful for you. I read them, too. Does that make you useful all of a sudden? Just the opposite, I think. And what’s your opinion on ground-level intelligence? Does it matter? Specifically, how much of your opinion is coming from 1) working directly with black inner-city leaders, 2) working directly with the minority business community, 3) working directly with black police chiefs and officers, 4) working directly with the departments of corrections, and 5) working directly with educational institutions? Or, have you ever tried to teach a class in a black inner city neighborhood before? Ever spent time in a prison? Ever sat in on a community relations meeting with African American community organizers? The reality is life in these places doesn’t fit on some nice neat little page that you’re going to want to run around and quote ten ways from Sunday.
That’s what I find so laughable here – you all want to pretend that you’re all so above racism, that you’re all so educated on things, that you’re SO the champions of these people, and yet you know zilch about it and you do fuck all. So far, best I can tell, I’m the only one in here actually working within these communities alongside these people, and you’re so high on yourselves you’re trying to push that somehow what you’re doing is “right” and what I’m doing is “wrong”. Amazing what you reward and pat yourselves on the back for.
And your beloved “research” – do you have any idea how bad the liberal PC push has ruined research as of late? Do you know that when we all get around a table to discuss community issues, the first thing we do is go through how much bullshit there is on the piece of paper that is in front of us where some reporter, or some researcher, has written something. Both are so off the mark most times it’s a joke.
Do you know how to tell what’s going on in some zip code? You ask the church, you ask the cops, you ask the small business owners. You don’t run around these places pretending like you know something because you read it in some book or some report somewhere. Find me the report or the best practices that shows the best way to get attendance in an inner-city adult learning classroom in LA versus Phoenix. You won’t find anything talking about the intra-community racism, and even the local college dipshits will sit there and deny it as people from the community are telling them this, but guess what? Direct correlation between high attendance and low attendance, high marks and low marks.
Now law enforcement and racism. You think you know something just because you read some report somewhere, well not when it comes to this.
You want to call me a racist go ahead, but the black people within these communities know the difference between me and you, and more importantly, they know who’s actually there – on the ground – to support them – and I’ve been honored to. And the ones who reject the thug culture that you give such a free pass to, guess what they call you? Just what I do – cowards, wannabes, and “fake liberals”. And on that note, tell me – what is it that you ACTUALLY do for these communities, Tildeb? Tell me it’s more than just hitting an [ENTER] key?
And another question: why is BLM the bandwagon you’re all now deciding to jump on? What about the 50 or so other black community organizations who’ve already been working inside communities for decades? Do you care (or have even thought about) what these other groups think of BLM? Or is BLM the flavor of the month, too, because it’s two gay women?
And by the way, the only reason BLM is NOW trying to act all civil is because they know since Dallas that they’re at risk of losing their legitimacy. Only now do they come out everywhere encouraging peace.
That aside though, I’m curious as to where your support or volunteerism was for the other black organizations, or the black community then? Were you on some other bandwagon cause at the time? 😉
Hmmm… what else….
Ahh. You start talking about “racism in general” when it comes to cops. Nobody’s arguing that there isn’t some degree of racism there. Two things though: 1) you won’t acknowledge the elephant in the room, however, which is that the “sustaining force” behind embedded racism has mostly to do with the thug culture that many blacks choose to embrace and your kind chooses to give a free pass to. The minute anyone actually admits that openly, however, watch out – you liberals freak out over the stress that’s just caused you and now you have to 1) demand free money, and 2) go sulk in some saferoom somewhere.
The second thing is the functional part of your argument concerning “systemic racism” (or the lack of one). Tell me – to what degree does racism actually exist in police departments across the US? 1%? 10% 50%?? This is important to distinguish because it relates specifically to resources and solutions. It’s also important because it concerns leadership and effective action plans. To simply say “racism is rampant and we have to do something about it” and then do nothing (like you liberals do) is utterly useless, so tell me first how you know what supposedly the degree of racism is across the United States? Do you know it from outdated reports that are finally being disputed with recent research confirming what many of us who’ve been in the system have known for a decade? Can you tell me which police departments are racist? Which Police Chiefs? I can, but tell me where your knowledge comes from here – tell me names, give me a number, and tell me what they’re doing (or not doing) about it that you haven’t read in some slanted news report somewhere if you’re so certain you’re in the know on this, and so certain it’s an epidemic.
I’m quite sure I’m in far more police departments across the country than you are, and I’m quite sure we can add prisons and also inner-city community centers, too, so with that I can tell you with certainty that 1) I’m FAR more objective that you are on this issue, 2) far more informed, and 3) any claim of “widespread racism” like the one you’re trying to make is totally overblown.
“What he doesn’t do is realize that his way of thinking about confronting institutionalized racism is itself part of the problem that maintains and sustains embedded racism.”
That all sounds nice out of a book, Tildeb, and it supports the nice little fantasy that there’s a bunch of white cops “assassinating” black people (that’s the word you liberals use, isn’t it?) The “win”, of course, is that it appeases liberal white guilt and makes you all feel like they’re actually having an impact on the world. Fine. You can all keep hitting the ENTER key and gooing all over yourselves – who cares.
The reality is that there’s a thug culture out there that glorifies violence, misogyny, rape, drug dealing, gun violence, and cop-killing that you give a free pass too which is as much at the SOURCE of the problem as whiteness, racism, or whatever else you want to insist is in there. You have to give it a free pass, though, because in liberal thinking, you can’t criticize what you think is a “victim” – anywhere, at any time, for anything. Just like VW said moments ago – let’s not be so hard on a child molester, since there’s lots we can learn from them. Let’s not be so hard on the whacko that killed 5 cops, we need to sympathize with his “reasons” (and btw, I don’t give a shit if he raised blind orphans before he shot at police officers same as I don’t give a shit if Hitler was nice to his dog – he’s a coward whacko loser thug killer – end of story). You giving these people free passes for their ACTIONS based solely upon their THOUGHTS – that to me is far more “dangerous” and irresponsible than anything. (Your side does the same with child molesters, rapists, and murderous illegal immigrants in court, too, because hey – they’re “victims”, right? So I guess I’m not surprised?)
Anyways, you can talk all you want about symptoms vs. problems but the fact of the matter is you’re nowhere near the problem and have no clue what it looks like. You try and act and pretend like you’re right there when all you’ve done is read something out of a book somewhere.
Anyways, ask anyone close to the issue – the thug culture you give a total free pass to does more to “sustain embedded racism” than any rogue cop does.
Bias – you’re wrong, Tildeb – I don’t consider myself to be unbiased. I am biased, and what matters is where I get my bias from. I read the literature, too, but I also work directly 1:1 with all the stakeholders. How about you? What’s your bias based on? Some piece of paper somewhere?
“Dangerous and irresponsible” – that’s funny. If that’s what you call “dangerous” I’m surprised you even get out of the house. 🙂 If that’s me, then you’re what – “safe and responsible” in contrast? Are those the words going for “liberal cowardice and hypocrisy” these days?
Regardless, if you want to mock me and my sense of what leadership is, then please provide me with your version of what leadership is (and not from some book – your actual words, please). I anxiously await.
In the meantime, I get that it’s both convenient and emotionally self-serving for you to dismiss and disregard the fact that I’m more informed and more directly involved with the black people and communities on this matter than you could ever be. Vilify me or do whatever you want – your labels or whatever that you liberals get so hung up on to try and compensate for that – it doesn’t matter to me.
What matters to me are results – my side gets them, and your side doesn’t because can’t, and don’t know how to lead or fight which is why they like people like me more than you in times like these. They know I don’t treat them like some fad or accessory, and they know I’m not using them to try and make myself appear moral and fair-minded like you all pretend to, which means they know that when I’m in there helping, it’s genuine and legit.
You? All you want to do is treat them like victims, and then apologize for yourselves, and then you all just sit there and keep asking them how they feel. It’s hilarious. That’s what your kind are like in our meetings – fawning over their stories and crying foul over the ridiculous little “microaggressions” or whatever sends your side to your safe rooms nowdays. You talk to them with this constantly apologetic tone like they have cancer or something. They laugh at it, and so do I.
Anyways, I guess we’ll see where BLM ends up. I have hopes for them just as I had hopes for Occupy, but you liberals effed that up so bad I don’t give BLM much of chance. We’ll see though – if their ultimate cause is TRULY what you say it is, then I hope they pull through. In the meantime, enjoy the view from your armchair. 😉
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Ah… I see the wheels have fallen off your bus: us/them, me good/you bad, you vs The Left, me active/you armchair, yada, yada, yada.
Believe it or not, VR Kaine, you know nothing about me. You presume much, but what is this based on? Well, again, you are susceptible to assuming your biases inform and justify your broad opinions about ‘liberals’ and the ‘Left’ as much as the ‘thugs’ of the BLM movement and the ‘assclowns’ who constitute its demonstrating membership. This is a thinking error where your own presumptions and assumptions about the characteristics of groups leads you badly astray when it comes to categorizing individual people.
There is no qualitative difference between the thinking the Dallas sniper used to justify his shooting of individual people because they are ‘police’, because they are ‘white’, and you categorizing all ‘liberals’ like I am as ‘armchair warriors armed with a keyboard’. You are attributing to me as an individual the characteristics of a group identity that you have saddled with all kinds of negative attributes. That’s the identical thinking you share with the shooter that produces racism. It produces a host of discrimination we see played out from homophobia to patriarchy. The only difference between the racist shooter and the racist you is the resulting actions, actions as the quite different symptoms of a real problem. And the real problem here is the method of thinking. Change that, change your small part adding to or reducing from a discriminatory society.
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I love how you liberals criticize things as though you’re so above them and aren’t totally guilty of them yourselves, and yet you do the same thing not only as bad, but worse – of course denying it all the way. After all, aren’t you part of the group that says all men are rapists, and that you should approach all men with that assumption? Or that all wealthy business owners or capitalists all “exploit” the middle class and the poor without a care in the world? Are you that kind of Liberal that says it’s always someone else or something else that’s the problem, justifying why you’re sitting on your ass, and if only people would listen to you, or follow your example of moral superiority the world would be such a better place? Sure seems like it.
I know you based upon your words, just as you profess to somehow know me from mine. Your discourse is the same as anyone I see daily who is failing at something, or hating the fact that they’re mediocre and feel helpless, that their only real sense of significance comes from some blog somewhere.
It’s also clear from your discourse that on matters of race, you sit in some armchair somewhere, putting you squarely in the group of “the people who talk” vs. the “people who do”, as you profess to know things about BLM that you’ve clearly never been close to. Perhaps there are some things you are active with and doing something about, but clearly it isn’t race issues (African American especially), yet you think your pedestal seems to grant you the ability to dictate who should do what? Isn’t that what you tell men or religious people what not to do re: reproductive rights?
No matter. You can cherry-pick my words or characteristics all you want just as I’m doing with yours. You can also equate my actions with racism, bigotry, or whatever just as I’ll equate yours with apathy, sanctimony, and hypocrisy.
Fact is I’m where you aren’t, doing what you can’t and won’t do, with friends in this community that you don’t have, and actually helping the people who would consider you to be nothing but a coward and a wannabe – i.e. far more part of the problem than any solution. Call my actions racist or bigoted if you want to – the people that matter on this, i.e. those in the community actually doing something – don’t call me either, and their opinion counts where yours doesn’t. Besides, I’d rather be some so-called racist or bigot in your fantasy world than a coward or hypocrite in the real world, which is clearly what you are.
And finally, you can dodge it or keep avoiding it all you want, but the fact is your side gives free passes to murderers, molesters, and rapists all because your “I must pretend like I DON’T discriminate” phoniness insists on it. The other fact is on the matter of racism you know you actually do zero despite all your posturing.
Yes, you’re right – I am the exact opposite of you because I actually do something about it. It makes sense, then, that you’ll do whatever possible to desperately label it with whatever “bad word” you can so you can sleep at night. Go ahead. I’ll put my record of serving minority communities and the results of my actions up against yours any day for them to judge, and they do. Yours and VW’s combined, actually, since you’re both one in the same. Until you can put something up on the board in that department, spare me your lectures.
“Change that, change your small part adding to or reducing from a discriminatory society.”
Haha – like I’d ever want your permission or advice on acting or being “small”. What are “small changes”, anyways? Nothing but Liberal excuses for doing zero, and being zero. “A black kid just got his ass kicked by a racist cop, but I blogged about it and regurgitated some African American socialist passage and called out a technically racist comment, so I did my ‘small part'”. No thanks, but in the spirit of such a bold challenge let me throw one over your way, Tildeb: head south to Detroit or Buffalo (If you’re in Toronto) and do a ride-along with some cops one night. Go down and meet with a black pastor or community organizer in the inner city, or go spend time with a doctor or a nurse in an emergency ward at a university hospital. Get some ACTUAL perspective on the matter rather, and then come talk to me. And whatever cause you’re actually active in, I’ll gladly do similar if I’m not already.
I’ll drop this endless thread with this final point: an irony in all of this is that your fantasy world is an attractive one. It would be great if those at the top or the bottom of the economic scale weren’t so greedy, if leaders at corporations would take more social responsibility, and yes, if cops and the black community could get along better. I’d love to live at one of the places I live in the States and NOT have to deal with the quarterly burglaries and thefts I deal with just because the neighborhood knows I’m Canadian and don’t own a gun, and I’d also like to not have to deal with some REAL bigot and racist across from the table from me asking with either their words or expression why I’m helping… “them, or giving me strange looks when my client – a successful black man – is in my passenger seat rather than my driver’s seat.
The world you’re striving for, Tildeb, is much better world and we need the thinkers, philosophers, and ideologists like you to craft it. I’m all for it – and I’ve said as much to Arb, too – but I’d say be careful regarding your total reliance on statistics whether it’s economics, war, or racism, because it’s a dangerous and irresponsible disconnect that all the rest of us are left having to pay for.
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Oh, and by the way – the “wheels” on my bus are just fine, thanks. Rich, happy, and fulfilled and I stay that way because I don’t let some news article, video, or some blog post somewhere ruin my day or my life, or throw me off a path of achievement like Libtards do. 🙂
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“You don’t even have the guts (or the objectivity) to call the Dallas shooter a racist, for one.”
Odd you keep coming back to this. He’s someone who committed a mindless revenge attack, I don’t hold anyone who murders in high regard. But can you explain why you want me to call him a racist? What would that add to the discussion? Besides illustrating I’m not clear what a racist is (fyi “a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another.” – has that been proven to be the case? Or was he furious and attempting to take revenge/make a point?) And why would it take guts to say something incorrect? Because you do all the time and show no regret, I expect.
“you haven’t challenged one fact or bit of research without immediately defaulting back to your beloved victim card again!
Yeah, I did. Researched the first one in your list of nonsense that claimed a BLM protest was shouting about killing cops. You were wrong, I gave evidence, and you brushed it aside. I suppose if I cared I could go through your racist sludge links piece by piece to refute them. But I’m more than sure you’d been in denial for each and every one.
“I throw them at you because I believe you’re not only a hypocrite, but gutless on this issue.” You throw them because you’re embarrassed about your post, and being angry at your fictitious liberal straw man makes you feel good about yourself.
I love tree moss. It is vital to our ecosystem and beautiful to boot. I’m not surprised you are oblivious on both counts.
Click to access pnw_2010_turetsky001.pdf
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I throw insults at you because of all the goofy things you say, and how you pretend to be involved or objective as though you’re either. Oh, and because you’re a hypocrite and gutless, too.
And as for what feels good, it’s 1) giving the other people in my office a good laugh reading your positions, and 2) knowing that while you’re wasting time on these blogs I’m making tons of money.
And yeah, VW, I keep going back to the calling the Dallas shooter a racist thing because was the subject of my post that you pulled over here trying to grandstand for one.
For another, it speaks to your (lack of) objectivity, your cowardice, and further proves my point that “Fair Share” Liberals like you can’t be objective, they can’t think straight, and they can’t do the hard work on an issue because they can’t, for a second, ever criticize a “victim” or their (oh so) world comes crashing down.
That’s why your kind gives rapists a free pass so long as their illegal immigrants, or thug racist shooters a free pass so long as they’re taking aim at white people. By your avoidance of my challenge and your deflections, all you do is prove my point. That, and the fact that you’re absolutely useless (and pointless) to African Americans. 🙂
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“knowing that while you’re wasting time on these blogs I’m making tons of money”
1. You should try and work on not getting your sense of worth from your material wealth. There’s something odd about people who need to be rich to feel they are worth something, but it becomes even odder when they need to bring up their wealth in arguments they are losing, as if the rest of world will gasp in great appreciation and bow before them.
2. You should try not to imagine what function spending time on blogs has for other people. And if you do think they are harming their lives (ie their time could be spent more constructively) then you it would be normal to suggest they change their habits in a friendly way, again, not just as a misguided and bitter taunt when you’re losing an argument.
3. From the description you’ve given of yourself (an incredibly wealthy person who spends a considerable amount of time working with disadvantaged people) I’m struggling to imagine you work in an open plan office where you spend serious chunks of time blogging (enormous comments!) and chatting with !?intelligent?! workmates about how stupid other bloggers are. It’s all a bit … made up sounding?
“That’s why your kind gives rapists a free pass so long as their illegal immigrants, or thug racist shooters a free pass so long as they’re taking aim at white people.”
Oops, confused again. Rapists and murderers never get a free pass. I’ll explain where you’re getting confused. When I see a white rapist or murderer going to jail, I never make the mistake of assuming all white people are the same. I don’t campaign for white people specifically to behave better, call them all assclowns or tell them they are not allowed in my country. Why do you believe that if an immigrant or a black person does something foul you suddenly have licence to condemn every other immigrant or black person? I’m suggesting it’s because you’re racist (in case you weren’t sure).
I think I explained to you in the last comment that to be racist someone has to believe that people who appear to be of other races are inferior to people who appear to be of their own race. It would be factually incorrect of me to declare that the Dallas shooter was a racist in the absence of that evidence. He was mindless revenge murderer who committed a crime based on the job role and racial appearance of other people. (It feels kind of odd stating the obvious, but some people (like you) are easily confused and need some basic hand-holding.)
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Haha. Based upon “racial appearance” but he wasn’t racist, huh? Interesting. So when you target someone of a particular race and believe that not only should they die because of their skin color, but that they should die at your hands as well, that’s not “racist” to you? (Pssst…. see my point about you defending racists and murderers? You’re doing it again here.)
And how about your defense of “revenge”? That would mean that those cops actually did something to the guy – they didn’t. Yet he plays the victim card and you, like some sucker, immediately eat it up. Pathetic.
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Please do go check what ‘racist’ is in a decent dictionary and come back to explain to me why he fits the description.
And stop pulling out random words from my comments and conveniently missing out bits like ‘murderer’ and ‘mindless’. Perhaps while you’re in the dictionary you should look up ‘revenge’ and explain to me why it’s a compliment.
Seriously, you’re getting more desperate and embarrassing by the minute.
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“Please do go check what ‘racist’ is in a decent dictionary and come back to explain to me why he fits the description.”
I just did, but I’m sure your cognitive dissonance is keeping your brain at bay from it.
“And stop pulling out random words from my comments and conveniently missing out bits like ‘murderer’ and ‘mindless’.”
You mean cherry-picking comments? You’re the queen of it. You stop, I’ll stop. That simple.
“Seriously, you’re getting more desperate and embarrassing by the minute.”
Ya, I get it. Claims like I’m somehow “desperate” are the only way you can try and keep whatever highground you think you have in life going. Must be desperate to prove a point, right, against you – the ultimate authority? Hardly.
“Desperate” is how you cling to and defend racist cop-killers in order to appear moral or kind, and that you somehow matter. Desperate is you constantly trying to run to some book somewhere to prove how credible you are on an issue that you have zero experience with nor the mental capacity to even grasp. Desperate is you trying to pretend that you understand cops, or anything on a street level where racism is involved in the US.
You’re a wannabe and a phony who is entirely useless on this issue. In spite of all that, even if I wanted your agreement on things, it could never be “desperate” for two simple reasons:
1) You have zero credibility on the matter, and
2) Your emotions on this issue override your sense of honesty and objectivity, making you what again? Oh yeah, a useless, cowardly wannabe.
Btw, looks like you have four new “heroes” to start defending all over again:
I look forward to hearing who you’re going to blame for all these. Anyone but the perpetrator, surely, but hey – did you know that the truck the derkaderka drove in Nice was WHITE? Something’s up with that, huh?
And three more of your little buddies for you to get your bullshit “revenge” defense ready for:
http://www.wbrz.com/news/3-officers-dead-after-shooting-near-brpd-hq
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My goodness, it’s becoming impossible to have a conversation with you. Try to focus. I understand your opinion of me, you’ve expressed it on numerous occasions. Just so you know, I find your opinion of me irrelevant, although I’ll be happy to reflect on some of it as a separate matter to this conversation.
Let’s take the conversation back to the bit where you think that if one person murders several people (based on their job and their appearance) during a peaceful demonstration, then the purpose of the whole demonstration can be ridiculed, lambasted and essentially spat on. Let’s try and understand why you think that is appropriate or intelligent. Any coherent sentences you can muster on the topic in hand would be welcome.
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The thugs I was referencing in my post were the ones taunting the cops after 5 of their comrades had just been gunned down, where these same cops were standing in front of a convenience store that just got looted and were preventing the thugs from doing more damage. My wording was such that I was painting them all with that same brush at the time, but that’s not an accurate representation of my overall belief. My focus was on the thugs who I still believe are complete and total pieces of shit.
As for BLM in Dallas, I’ve said before (and elsewhere) that their protest was what anyone would have wanted – tone of safety, respect, cops in amongst them taking pictures with them, tone was cordial, and the protestors were exercising their right to assembly and free speech. Awesome. I have no problem with those events or that group prior to the shooting that day.
My criticism of BLM in general, however, goes beyond Dallas and back to BLM’s origins. I’ve expressed my opinions ad nauseum on that. I don’t agree with that they’ve given, in general, a free pass to, nor their half-assed argument, nor their convenient ignorance of facts and data that go contrary to their position. I also think their sense of leadership is pathetic (I’m in that line of work so I’m biased), and that they offer nothing by way of solutions – just what’s been mostly rushes to judgments, and chances to get their faces on social media. Those are some of the criticisms. My contempt for them, at this point however, comes from their lack of attack on a thug culture that they still seem to embrace within their own community. The stuff I’m working on, you haven’t even seen on TV yet.
That contempt is reserved, however – there’s still a chance to turn things around, and after Dallas (and now Baton Rouge), I hope that they do. I think they finally realized the power of their rhetoric just as Trump finally had to, but that they gave it a free pass for too long and let things go too far. Hopefully now they bring it back to where things can actually get done.
We’ll see – are they just going to make some superficial statements now that three more cops are killed, or are they going to actually take a firm stand against it? There’s more hatred, racism, excuses, and other bullshit going on inside their own communities than any “system” could ever give them, and if they’re not addressing that at the same time, they’re going to collapse. If they are, then then they’ll continue to have my hope and possibly – depending on their message – support.
For now, my work is with community-police relations, employment programs, entrepreneurship, and secondary education and the many African American groups that are already doing constructive things within the community rather than just tweeting. They’ve been doing this for the past 10 years, but these loser thugs have now set all that back 50 in my opinion. Very sad.
Also sad: just got the call. Off to Lousiana next week as part of an advisory group. For f##k sakes – this is all going to get way worse before it gets better.
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If you’d managed to scrape together a post like that, or a comment like that in the first place, you could have saved everyone a whole lot of time. No idea what you get out of the mud-slinging.
My only point would be that the ‘thugs’ you refer to in that video seem to be a tiny group of drunk young people – I couldn’t see how they were in any way connected to Black Lives Matter. You do seem eager to find unconvincing reasons to dislike BLM – the derogatory “BLM lovers” comment etc. You may not be happy with every detail of what they’re doing (or not doing) but you should appreciate the voice and the platform the movement has given everyone for change and recognition. I don’t see how jumping on derision bandwagons (primarily led by overt racists) can help anything.
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“My only point would be that the ‘thugs’ you refer to in that video seem to be a tiny group of drunk young people – I couldn’t see how they were in any way connected to Black Lives Matter.”
That group of punks are spin-offs of the “thug life” sub-culture which is a cancer within the African American culture. All about the “hustle”, all about the gang violence and crime, all about giving snitches stiches, all about “F–k the police.” One thing to observe it, another to promote it and most content out there promotes it. This is the elephant in the room that the PC culture doesn’t want to admit, yet it such a huge part of the police vs. black community problem that both sides need to acknowledge and address. It’s these thugs who are piling on to the #BLM theme that stand to ruin it, just as you had the troublemakers piling on to #Occupy. As leadership, this is BLM’s moment of truth – to outshine and outclass everybody, and rise above. They were already doing that the day after Dallas.
But choose to only ignore the thug element and not physically stand up to it, then they’ll own it. The “few bad apples” won’t work anymore.
Want to get the police and the people instantly on your side? Stand between the thugs and the cops like some have. The optics of that alone – watch what happens – and then make room for the police to confront them. Super-powerful, and a move that will go down in history.
Short of that defining moment (right now their only defining moment are the fires, riots, and looting in Ferguson), they need to SHOW their boundaries not just through their words, but actions as well.
“I don’t see how jumping on derision bandwagons (primarily led by overt racists) can help anything.”
Sure. Here’s it’s just arguing to vent some steam, I get that. In reality, though, I’m far from on a bandwagon with this – I come into this with far more depth and far more history than someone jumping on an anti-BLM bandwagon. You’re right to a degree – just arguing about it solves nothing.
Keep in mind that i work with leaders, though, and I’m hard on them in whatever venture it is that they’re passionate about getting going – public or private sector, business or social. I’m hard on them because they need to be (pardon the expression) “bulletproof” – there’s a point where people have to “step up” and be true leaders and get VERY honest, otherwise they put their cause to shame and they’ll make it a joke. That’s exactly what happened to #Occupy, and that’s what I see happening to #BLM. Not everyone can be a leader even if they’re the ones who started something and are passionate about a cause. The real leaders need to step up, and we haven’t seen that with Ferguson yet.
Am I anti-BLM? Honestly, I’d say mostly right now I am, but only for “lack of leadership reasons” rather than its stated cause, and that’s the difference. If they are truly trying to raise the bar on their culture, then not only am I for it, I’ve been helping since two Presidents ago.
Aside from the racial profiling or unlawful shooting thing, keep in mind that through two Presidential terms (at least), nobody has given two shits in politics (even Obama) about black employment, black-on-black violence, absentee fatherism, or black entrepreneurship. The bandwagon everyone has been on has been illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, and what could we give them. People who don’t deserve to be here in the first place, and here the African American population was being literally pushed back and forgotten. Its usual supporters were now throwing all of their energy behind their new flavor of the month – the criminal illegal, and being all anti-Trump and anti-wall. Mexican lives, Honduran lives, Venezuelan lives, and Cuban lives mattered more, and African Americans have been pissed about this for a VERY long time, so to me (and those really involved in this issue), #BLM is more than just the cop thing. On that basis, I actually welcomed the voice because I believe they were totally justified – even as simply Americans.
Leave a leadership vacuum in BLM though, let the thug element come in, and turn a blind eye or give essentially a free pass to the thug words and actions, though, and you’ll lose my respect fast. You’ll lose the movement, too. People don’t tolerate that shit for too long anymore.
Yikes – another long comment! I’ll close with this: Tildeb makes a point about the risks in saying “us vs. them”, but in leadership there has to be a clear line of who “we” are and who “they” are – what exactly do we stand for (and what will be physically fight against) vs them.
MLK said it: “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” Leadership is a heavy burden and it’s not for everybody. Let’s hope that either the founders or someone else in BLM truly steps up.
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“…but some people (like you) are easily confused and need some basic hand-holding.”
Haha! Yeah, we all need hand-holding from you due to your advanced intellect, and because you function so well in the world.
Such a leader you are, so please – hand-hold all of us to that cookie-filled, micro-aggression-free safe room that you happen to peek out of each time you decide to jump on some bandwagon cause.in order to feel like you mean something.
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Okay, will do. 🙂
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Thanks. Isn’t this fun?! 🙂
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VW – it’s nice to see the group behind the march actually calling out the thugs that are infiltrating the BLM ranks – something which you lack either the guts or capacity to do, it seems, but let’s not ignore your attempt at false equivalency here.
“It was only a few dozen people shouting that”. Haha! Yeah, just a few dozen – let’s ignore the thousands of tweets saying “go kill a cop” or “go kill a white person” or tweets in support of the shooter. What are cops marching for? Protesting for? Any groups out there chanting “kill black people”? Even white people stomped this down decades of years ago.
Clearly we’re going to disagree on what the real world actually is. Where you and I might agree, however, is that BLM’s so-called “leadership” wants to be peaceful. That I can actually agree with. My contempt for them is not with their (supposed) underlying premise. Instead, it is the same that I had with Occupy – lefties are largely gutless and hate power, so inherently they hate leadership and because they do, they as a consequence lack message and boundaries. That allows pos’s like the New Black Panthers and the thugs that you see looting, and the gangbangers into their ranks to do harm in their name, and in all cases leadership (or lack of it) is responsible.
The same happened in Occupy, where not only did you have all the looting, vandalism, and violence but they had to even set up “Rape Free Zones” for eff sakes. Pathetic. Conversely, I’m not a fan of the Tea Party (at all) but look what they did at the same time? They tempered the outlandish rhetoric, organized around leaders – ACTUALLY CLEANED UP AFTER THEMSELVES AT RALLIES and oh yeah – DIDN’T RAPE! – and a mere six months later they were a voting powerhouse in both the House and the Senate. I think they’re a bunch of ridiculous idealogues when it’s all said and done, but regardless of what I think of them that’s leadership in action; something which the left time and time again shows they’re absolutely incapable of. Even Bernie Sanders – who I admire for a lot of reasons – did he take a “power position” or position of leadership against Hillary? No – he was soft, giving her “free passes” everywhere like your kind are so apt to doing, and he lost. He lost because he was weak, just like Occupy lost, and just like BLM – if they don’t get some actual leadership soon – will lose as well.
I see the righteousness of the underlying cause on the one hand, but unlike you I can also recognize all the crap and thuggery on the other. That’s how solutions come about, not just sitting on your ass hitting an “ENTER” key feeling self-righteous.
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I’m not failing to recognise ‘crap and thuggery’ anywhere. Where did I deny there are negative elements associated with BLM? Of course there are, like there are with any large group of people. What I won’t do is deny that it is an important movement that carries a vital message for your country, and that the majority of people who support it do so in a non-violent way.
VR Kaine, you are simply desperate for it the whole of BLM to be evil, evil, bad. It’s a thoroughly odd way to view things. You clearly think you are a True Leader who Does Stuff, and anyone who disagrees with you is weak liberal with their head in the clouds. A True Leader who Does Stuff, doesn’t attack movements like BLM because they don’t like the actions of a minority few. They question or condemn the actions of the minority few, while recognising and supporting the need for everyone in the USA to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter as much as anyone else’s.
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